Am I good to go ?

[Gewyne]

Hi there, I would like to ask people for advice.

I have created my website BS13 ? South Bristol BS13 community , I have articles set up to be auto published and am writing a few background articles (history etc).

I was aiming this week to

facebook fan page set up

Do a facebook ad campaign targeting my postcode (small £10.00 limit)

A few giveaways (I have some T-shirts and baseball caps)

Add adsense if approved.

Contact local business for potential ads, sponsors.



The site will have a lot more content on there over the coming days, but is it visually ok, working enough to get people to want to read that content ? I know the facebook plugins look strange with no fans/likes etc at present. I just do not want people to come, look and leave within few seconds never to return.


I feel as if I both know what I am doing, and am clueless as the same time...

[nzmegs]

Looks good to me. I do find it a touch "busy". A little too much information on the home page perhaps. When you get your ads put on you may find that you need to streamline things a little bit so that the ads aren't lost.

How have you been marketing the website? other than facebook?

[Sandstone]

This is exactly the type of service that I think smaller towns in the United States need. I would love one for my community!

[Gewyne]

Thanks for the feedback. I think maybe reducing the recent post down to three, and reducing the comments/tweets section maybe a good move, I am not sure what else I could do (maybe move the follow us buttons into the header section ?)

I may trim the space at the top of the page as well, I liked the clean look but on reflection this is going to try to be a community site, so having comments, information and encouraging people to join in is important.

I was going to do a facebook ad campaign targeting my post code, and when I hopefully get some traffic approach some companies to see if they are interested in sponsoring.

A form for local companies to fill out their details and get automatically added to the site under the trade they do, as well as a linked write up page on the site also linking to their own company.

A few Google ads, targeting each of the sections - sports eqpt in sports, school/exam items in schools etc....

This is my first web site attempt, and I must admit it will take me time, and I also need to invest in a couple of these tools. I just feel really stoked reading up on it all, researching - then scared to death when it comes to actually adding it to my site. I guess it means I have stepped from all this time being a wannabe, to actually having my own business that I need to run and promote... that is I think where the fear comes from.. no safety net.